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Red Stone Scribe

A discussion of news, ideas and opinions regarding the relevance of Feminism, Antiquity, Literature & Multiculturalism to the existence of urban communities 

about geronimo redstone

Malcolm X in 2015: No More Relevant than the Afro & Hair Pick?

2/22/2015

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There is a scene in the first installment of my novel, The Bachelor Scrolls, in which the protagonist asks a scholar of South Asian ancestry about the three debts a child is born with—as told by Hindu tradition. The scholar replies that the first is the debt he owes to the sages. In acknowledgment of an answer he already knew, the protagonist suggests that too many males in America “have failed to repay the Western equivalent of those debts.” I fear the same is true of the national response to the legacy of Malcolm X (aka, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), the self-educated sage who played a leading role in establishing the conceptual foundations of racial justice and the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. And that is a fear shared by at least one of Malcolm’s daughters.

In a Newsweek interview, Ilyasah Shabazz (featured in the clip below) confided that she was worried that her father “was being written out of history.” And although there has been some limited media coverage to mark the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination, it seems unbalanced in comparison to remembrances of Selma and the legacy of the now-immortal Dr. Martin Luther King. (One of America’s favorite public intellectuals, Melissa Harris-Perry, is a notable exception.) That prompts me to ask whether Americans—more specifically, African-Americans—still view El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz as relevant to the history of racial justice and black empowerment in this republic. Or, alternatively, do we think of him as some campy but fading holdover from a pre-Millennial generation like Shaft movie reruns, bell-bottom pants or the Afro hairstyle? That would be regrettable, but isn’t even the Afro making a comeback?

If Malcolm X is being written out of history, it may be because the American culture has a checkered past in embracing its agents of progress—something akin to a national split personality disorder. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover would conspire to destroy a determined Dr. King, yet an admiring nation would eventually grant MLK's memory a federal holiday. And Frederick Douglass didn’t have many advocates in a post-antebellum South, although today some southern Republicans may wish to invoke him as a symbol of party inclusiveness. They may accept Mr. Douglass’ audacity framed in the dream of racial equality; it may take another century for them to eventually respect Obama’s love of country and audacity of hope.

Malcolm, to the annoyance of condescending authorities, was also audacious; he rhetorically equipped himself to play the role of a prosecuting attorney against a negligent and indifferent republic, a career option he was discouraged from pursuing by a supremacist system of education. Indeed, Malcolm was audacious enough to expect that an underclass of second-class citizens of a democratic nation, a republic that guaranteed the right to bear arms, should also have the right to defend themselves from the ever-present threat of lynching, beatings, bombings, burnings and police brutality. But somewhere along the formation process of public opinion, that conviction was translated by an American media and sympathetic liberals who were not accustomed to black assertiveness, it was interpreted into a caricature as “militant” and “violent” and “radical.” You know, just like the British colonial powers must have reacted to Patrick Henry’s exhortation of “Give me liberty, or give me death!” (That was an analogy that Malcolm himself invoked.) The one difference I would suggest is that Malcolm’s brilliant rhetoric of the “ballot or the bullet” was less extremist than Patrick Henry’s posture. It also suggested a more optimistic belief in the possibilities of the democratic process under a system controlled by a dominant power. Nihilists and anarchists see no possibility of success in the quest for freedom; optimists and patriots see nothing but victory for those determined to embrace it. Nevertheless, it seems that Malcolm is still viewed—even in 2015—as some twentieth-century equivalent of the gladiator Spartacus, whose legend is of incited slave revolts against the power of ancient Rome. Malcolm X assuredly was a useful and evolving tactician in using hyperbole and threats as external sources of pressure for White House negotiations with civil rights leaders (a classic exercise of the good guy-bad guy stratagem), but I see nothing in his record that suggests he ever came close to inciting a revolt akin to the Spartacus legend. Even the Black Panther Party, which was influenced by his ideological constructs, never posed any real threat to the republic.

So, I will here suggest that if your intellectual or moral temperament towards the advancement of human rights can be described as existentialist, progressive, just, freedom-loving, assertive, conservative (but not reactionary), freethinking, internationalist, Pan-African, uncompromising, democratic, community-oriented, entrepreneurial, anti-colonial, religious, results-oriented, compassionate, determined, disciplined, inquiring, defiant, courageous, indicting, analytical or just simply critical, then you must—by definition—admire the legacy of Malcolm X. And that is because Malcolm was all those things. Now, if by chance you don’t feel you fall into any one of the aforementioned categories, you should accept Malcolm’s significance anyways—if you happen to be black. And also if you believe that all people should always embrace one or more of the above temperaments in the conduct of their daily lives.

But that’s a moral argument to advocate Malcolm X’s status in the nation’s history. In a subsequent post, I will cite two reasons why, now more than ever, it is strategically essential for all Americans to embrace Malcolm X as a national symbol in order to bolster the welfare and security of the American republic. In ten years, we will mark the centennial of his birth. The clock is ticking if we hope to see it become a national holiday by then or, at least, a monument erected in his honor in the nation’s capital. Neither may ever happen, but he is worth the try. MLK earned his right to national honors because he became this nation’s moral compass. I note, however, that the needle of any compass is only functional because it has two opposing points. – Geronimo Redstone
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Kurdish Female Fighters: Showing American Support for Global Feminism

2/15/2015

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Instead of exposing themselves to accusations of waging a “war on women,” Republicans in Congress—in bipartisan support with Democrats—can help women to wage war. Historically, warfare has been considered to be the exclusive province of men. The problem with that premise is that it imposes the burden of defending an entire society’s gene pool on just one-half of its members—even while further eliminating the youngest and oldest citizens of a nation-state (or territory that aspires to that status) from the call to arms. And, of course, universal ethical standards and effectiveness in the conduct of war dictate that children and the elderly should never be called upon to carry the spear, sword or Kalashnikov. However, the more self-defeating aspect of that sacred cow has been the arrogance of assuming that the moral virtues of soldiers—courage, cunning, leadership and the will to win—are also the monopoly of men.

America’s military has slowly maneuvered along a continuum away from such delusions. In my inaugural novel The Bachelor Scrolls, the character Athena, a Marine Corps major, represents a fictional construct of what equality in the military might entail. And we should hope that recent American experiments to assess the combat effectiveness of women on the battlefield will yield encouraging results for female military careers. American legislators should be diligent in monitoring those experiments.

However, perhaps the most consequential examples of the equality of women in warfare are the Kurdish female fighters of the Syrian and Iraqi theaters of combat, women who are fighting against the threat of rape, slavery and extinction by the so-called Islamic State. Constituting nearly a third of Kurdish fighters mobilized in Syria, they have captured the fascination of many in the West who are typically accustomed to seeing women marginalized in other Middle Eastern cultures. With battlefield courage displayed and broadcasted by a curious Western media—much to the misogynistic chagrin of ISIL fighters—these warrior-saints of feminist empowerment are shattering preconceptions of female capabilities and vulnerability. Arguably, one of their most significant combat accomplishments has been the propaganda value of shaming Arab men to take the battle to ISIL and terrifying jihadist war criminals with the notion of being slain by a woman. 

So as the United States Congress debates whether that body should provide President Obama with authority to wage war against ISIL, it should consider the example of these female fighters. It should not be forgotten that distinction earned in warfare has an interesting way of eventually advancing the rights of oppressed peoples. Although it happened far too slowly, and to the lasting shame of the American republic, the prowess of America’s all-black regiments of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the African-American military accomplishments of WWII, all would help awaken some sectors of a racist America to the inherent dignity and rights of its dark-skinned populations. And that would help usher in the eventual victories of the so-called Civil Rights Movement. Granted, the American human rights campaigns of the 1960s were waged with a strategy of non-violence. But one of the most enduring questions that history asks of objective observers and political tacticians looking back on that era is this: just how effective would Dr. King, and the sons and daughters of Selma, have been without the threat of Malcolm X and his ballot or the bullet rhetoric? This is an important question to ask as the fiftieth anniversary of Malcolm's assassination is marked this week.

In a manner similar to the pressure point that Malcolm X provided, I believe that these Kurdish female fighters will, in time, prove an existential threat to the patriarchal prerogatives of Middle Eastern leaders in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq, a threat that will ultimately force concessions that move the needle on the register of female empowerment. I say this because, once the battle against ISIL has been won, those same Kurdish women warriors will not be satisfied to be relegated to bit roles as cooks, wet nurses and the erotic play toys of males. And I suspect that the heroism and exploits of these warriors, broadcasted via social media, will eventually shape the consciousness of women in the Middle East—exploits such as those captured in media video clips. Congress should also be diligent in supporting the ripple effects of such waves of self-determination, as they occur. And legislators might—if their constituents encourage them to do so. After all, there may be no better opportunity to spread the seeds of sustainable democracy in the region.

While always an option of last resort, freedom is sometimes only obtained at the end of the barrel of a gun. That is not mere sloganizing courtesy of the National Rifle Association; it is something that the French Resistance understood to be essential during the Nazi occupation of World War II. Therefore, if Americans truly believe in human rights and female equality, they should also believe in the valiant female fighters of Kurdistan. Among women in the Middle East, we most certainly will see that fighting back against evil and injustice has a way of becoming an ingrained attitude of mind. And, maybe, the story and example of Kurdish women fighters will eventually spread to the female generation endangered by Boko Haram? Or the teenage girls and women of Darfur? But only if they know of them and are equipped and trained to defend themselves.

So, perhaps the only thing that the populations of the former Assyrian Empire and Mesopotamia may be missing is their own female equivalent of a Malcolm X. And their valor suggests that, if well-armed with more bullets, they will ensure that all women (and men) in the territories they control have full access to the ballot and the God-given rights of men (and women). Indeed, the Kurds are showing the world that more boots on the ground can come in a size 6 or size 7.

–- Geronimo Redstone, author of The Bachelor Scrolls, the modern fantasy of female empowerment
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Manhood & the Power of Verse -- Part One

2/8/2015

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During an interview with a major newspaper, the current poet laureate, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charles Wright, was asked this predictable question: why does poetry matter? His retort was that he could only answer why it mattered to him. That response was conveniently subjective and entailed no risk of refutation, but it failed miserably at giving the angel her due—particularly for someone who should be poetry’s greatest advocate. That is said with due respect to the professor’s prolific career.

Poetry, in fact, has always mattered to mankind. We first hear a faint hint, and nothing more than that, of its incantatory power in the nursery rhymes we learn—or the lyrics of popular rap artists. And through subsequent years of programming at elementary and secondary schools, we may be fed some standardized offering of authentic poems, perhaps much like the prescribed menus at cafeteria lunch counters. For most in America, the rite of passage through high school marks the last time we ever look upon a poem or call upon her beauty to arouse the human spirit. That explains why poetry exists forgotten and ignored as the Cinderella-sibling of fiction, hidden in the back corners and remotest bookshelves of book stores—or, at least, those that still operate these days in bricks-and-mortar outlets.   

There are, however, those rare moments when we are reminded that poetry is essential to the soul—even essential to our ability to exist and survive within a hostile universe. No better example of this phenomenon occupies our recent memory than that testament to the power of the human will, that prophet of multiculturalism the world knew as Nelson Mandela. For some twenty-seven years, Mandela survived the confines of a mortal-manufactured hell on earth by the agency of the character forged in the furnace of his will. But that furnace was fueled by his favorite poem: Invictus, a classic invocation of our higher angels penned by the nineteenth-century English poet William Ernest Henley. The special role of that poem in the life of the father of modern South Africa was delivered by a nuanced Morgan Freeman in the movie by the same name. A video clip describing the import of that verse to Mandela appears below.


So I would suggest to Professor Wright (and others) that poetry matters for a variety of reasons that are waiting to be discovered in its lines, its cadence and its choice of words. And at least one is its power to remind men to be men. – Geronimo Redstone
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    Red Stone Scribe:

    The blog's goal is a focused discussion around issues of feminism, antiquity and a multicultural world outlook & how they are tied to the progress of urban populations -- themes hinted at in The Bachelor Scrolls.

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